"The failures resulting from the neglect of democratic constituencies—and the inability to address, prioritize, or balance national interests—are now widely recognized to have fueled the rise of “populist-nationalist” movements. Less recognized, however, is that the professions of “globalism” heard during the last few decades were never really sincere, either. Both “populist-nationalists” and their critics too often take this rhetoric at face value, and believe that they are either fighting or defending “globalism.” What is at issue, however, is not a fully conscious globalism but rather a conscious refusal to distinguish between the universal and the particular. This confusion is significant because the nationalist-globalist framing often conceals the real problems.

The core problem at present is not the morality or immorality of either globalism or nationalism, universal principles or democratic sovereignty. In fact, those questions are totally irrelevant, because both sides claim to speak on behalf of national interests.

If there is a problem with today’s “globalism,” it is that it is incapable of dealing with ordinary questions of political power and conflicting interests, because both its aspirations and its legitimation presuppose their absence. In other words, the problem with today’s “globalism” is that it is not really globalism. A sincere commitment to the coercive imposition of a global state would actually be less naive and utopian than the imagined convergence of all political interests through globalization.

Likewise, the problem with today’s “nationalism” is that it is often not really nationalism. It is more interested in playacting the evil twin of an imaginary globalism than in defining national interests or organizing political power around them. Insofar as it refuses to make its ultimate goal the reinvigoration of the national state, it cannot address the problems that gave rise to it and instead frequently exacerbates them."